


When I Have Fears

by delusion_al



Series: Voltron: Hogwarts Mystery [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Boggarts, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Gen, Gryffindor Keith (Voltron), Hufflepuff Hunk (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Lance (Voltron)-centric, Male Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, One Shot, Quidditch, Ravenclaw Lance (Voltron), Slytherin Pidge | Katie Holt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:08:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25153741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delusion_al/pseuds/delusion_al
Summary: Lance and Pidge go Boggart-hunting late at night in the castle, but their deepest fears are not as obvious as they thought.
Relationships: Hunk & Lance (Voltron), Keith & Lance (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron), Lance & Pidge | Katie Holt, Lance/Pidge | Katie Holt
Series: Voltron: Hogwarts Mystery [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1822171
Comments: 3
Kudos: 28





	When I Have Fears

**Author's Note:**

> That moment when it literally takes me two years to finish a one-shot...
> 
> This work takes place within the same universe as my Hogwarts Mystery fanfic, Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!, between Chapters Four and Five! Be sure to read up to there so you get a full grasp of what's going on (though this could probably function as a standalone as well).

**1984**

“So, you know what to say when it comes out?”

“Yes.”

“I think we should practise.”

“Do I have to?”

“Aye. Now, repeat after me. Riddikulus.”

“Riddikulus.”

“A little louder for those at the back.”

“Riddikulus!”

“Your pronunciation’s off.”

“Rid – dik – u – lus!”

“And one for luck!”

“Ugh, Lance! _This_ is ridiculous! Open the damn cabinet!”

As much as he enjoyed teasing Pidge, Lance had to admit that the only reason he was being such an insufferable prick was because he was trying to cheer himself up. He knew he had hurt Hunk’s feelings earlier by kicking him out whilst they dealt with the Boggart. The big guy just wasn’t cut out for scary stuff like this – it would be better for him and everyone else if he just wasn’t here.

Lance could always apologise later when there was less at stake i.e. his reputation.

The cabinet in front of him wobbled on its legs, tilting dangerously to the side. Its glass door reflected Lance’s face, tinted orange from the firelight emanating from the torches dotted around the room. His features appeared diagonal and foreign, blurred by the layer of dust and grime on the mirror’s surface and distorted by its bulging forwards from the warped wood. The corner was cracked.

 _Bad luck,_ his brain whispered but he ignored it in favour of correcting his hair.

Over his shoulder, Lance saw Pidge’s reflection too. He stood with one arm raised and wand gripped tight in his fingers. He was small, even for a first year, and Lance wondered suddenly whether unleashing a Non-Human Spirituous Apparition that literally embodied fear on him was a good idea.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“ **Alohomora**.”

Lance pulled the cabinet door open and stepped away.

From where he stood, to the side and propped up against the wall, he couldn’t see its interior but, judging from Pidge’s lack of reaction, whatever abomination his subconscious was loathe to face had yet to reveal itself. He felt the temperature of the room drop. The air around him adopted the consistency of velvet, like it had been thickened and preened. The torchlight simmered, wavering between orange and blue before settling on a murky shade of violet.

Lance frowned, rubbing his chilled knuckles restlessly. It was now colder inside than it was outside. _What sort of horrorscape is this?_

Pidge breathed hard over the crackle of the flames, squinting through his circular glasses at the open door.

“Come on,” he muttered. “Where is it?”

And then, summoned by their own anticipation, a single hand crept around the opening’s edge, just in front of Lance’s face. Though the fingers were slim and hairless, it was not a pretty thing. Its nails were terribly long, unshaped and unpainted and blackened with dirt trapped beneath them, like the owner hadn’t bothered to cut them for months. One had ripped to the skin and left a soft, jagged edge. The cuticles were overgrown and frayed to the point that they peeled right back to the fingers, which bled where tiny strips of skin had been pulled away by teeth. It was kind of horrific, really – Lance never realised that Boggarts could be so detailed in their depictions.

 _A person?_ He hadn’t been expecting that. _Unless…_

Lance gave his head a quick shake. Sure, the most common appearance for a Boggart nowadays was He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named – who in their right mind wouldn’t be scared of Dark Lord? Dead or not, his legacy was still pretty fresh – there was no way that an eleven-year-old boy would be able to rationalise that fear. Right?

A forearm shot out from the depths of the cabinet and Lance flinched. Whilst its coarseness determined that Pidge’s fear was probably a man, something else caught his eye. There, carved into the wrist: a Death Mark.

Lance’s stomach dropped like he’d swallowed lead.

_Shit. Maybe it is him._

Pidge was utterly still apart from the rise and fall of his chest, which grew quicker and quicker with each passing second. He looked paralysed, staring at whatever – _whoever_ – was in the cabinet.

“Pidge,” Lance drawled slowly, just as a man in rags tumbled out and collapsed on the floor.

The problem here was that Lance didn’t know what Voldemort was supposed to look like. He’d heard rumours of a snakeskin head, slit-like pupils, a forked tongue, an amputated nose, but he’d never seen a picture. The person before him didn’t quite fit the bill.

He had long hair for a man, blond and clumped with dirt. Lance couldn’t see his face but instead noticed the hunch of his shoulders, the way his body shook as though he had his own personal earthquake beneath his hands and knees, the drag in his throat as he breathed, the drip of ink and something more sinister onto the floor.

Lance’s eyes flicked to Pidge, who had lowered his wand and stood gaping. He looked like a shell of his former courage.

_Oh, no._

“It’s not real,” Lance gushed quickly. “It’s just a manifestation of your fears. He can’t hurt you.”

But Pidge wasn’t listening. He was, shockingly, _moving towards the Boggart._ He walked tentatively, like the floor would give out under his tiny body mass, every step so light that he made no sound at all. Lance was speechless. The boy was so afraid, yet he still advanced, walking softly forwards.

Then, he smiled. It had a little twist to it, the smile of a child who was determined not to weep, and Lance was suddenly more scared of that face that he was of the man in the room because he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why Pidge was smiling. Smiling! At a Death Eater!

“You,” Pidge choked quietly. “You’re _alive_.”

_…what the fuck._

“Pidge!” Lance hissed, voice shaking with bewilderment. “What are you doing? Get away from that thing!”

He didn’t even realise he’d raised his wand until Pidge was stood between him and the Death Eater, arms spread wide. There was something comical about it because he was so small, and Lance could so easily knock him off his feet but he couldn’t bring himself to laugh.

“No!” Pidge cried. His face burned in the purple firelight.

Lance frowned and gritted his teeth. “What’s wrong with you!? That’s a Boggart!”

“He’s not! I’d never be afraid of him!”

The dull thump of his heart in his chest was the only thing keeping Lance grounded. He suddenly felt foolish. It was all too possible that the cabinet hadn’t contained a Boggart, that he’d been reckless and stupid and simply wished upon a childish fancy only to get them stuck in this mess.

But he really didn’t want to entertain the thought that the emaciated man on the floor wasn’t what he’d originally though because if he wasn’t the literal embodiment of fear then _who the fuck is he_ and _how did he get here_ and _why is there a Death Eater in the castle?_

“Oh, Pidge,” the man groaned. His voice was watery, thick with sea-foam, and he was pushing himself upwards onto his knees, into a crouch, straightening on his feet. He wasn’t very big, maybe only an inch or two taller than Lance, but he didn’t need to be to strike fear into his bones. Two monstrous yellow eyes peered at the Ravenclaw from over Pidge’s head, set deep into a pale, gaunt face. It took Lance all of two seconds to recognise who he was looking at.

Matthew Holt chuckled darkly and sneered, “You really should be.”

Slowly, Pidge turned. Lance couldn’t see his face but he pictured his eyes roaming wildly, taking in the cynical smirk, the glowing yellow eyes, the blood dripping down the side of his face, the Death Mark…

There was a whimper, and Pidge started to back away, like he’d only just realised who he was defending.

“No,” he choked. “ _No_.”

Lance watched, frozen, as Matthew Holt pressed the tips of his fingers to his forearm. Ink oozed like puss from the gaping wound of his tattoo. It wasn’t really the fear that paralysed him, nor was it the shock that there was a very corporeal, very real criminal stood right in front of him.

No. He was _confused_ , and that made him hesitate, mind whirring at a million miles a minute over what the hell the connection between Matthew Holt and Pidge Gunderson was.

Pidge had somehow managed to trap himself, even though the room was circular and had no corners, having manoeuvred himself into a dead-end of crates and boxes. A wall of empty birdcages separated him from Lance, and when Lance peered through the bars, he saw violent fear reflected in the fresh tears caking his cheeks.

He glanced at Matthew Holt. Matthew Holt who was still smiling, whose arm was bleeding black, yet whose eyebrows were upturned and who suddenly looked very small and very sad and… _apologetic?_

“Dearest Pidge,” he crooned in a way that made Lance shiver. “You must understand my motives.”

“No,” Pidge sobbed. “I really _don’t_.”

“If I don’t do this, they’ll kill me.”

 _Do what? Do what do what do what do –_ Lance stared at the Dark Mark and the grubby finger pressed into its centre and how the ink slithered like snakes. His breath hitched.

_He’s summoning more Death Eaters._

In his mind’s eye, a giant skull formed in the clouds above Hogwarts, regurgitated a serpent made from water vapour and venom and the smell of death from its unhinged jaw. Lance saw masses of men with metal faces rallying and swarming across the grounds, and sleeping children shrieking themselves awake, and bursts of blue, green, red fire lighting up the night.

Pidge was talking. Babbling even.

“–me home, you don’t have to do this.”

“The thing is,” Matthew Holt muttered, “it’s not about what I have to do anymore. It’s about what I want, and that’s to watch this whole school burn along with everyone in it. Including you.”

That was when the screaming started.

Boy, Lance had never heard anything like it. It was like Pidge was screaming with his whole body, eyes screwed shut, mouth rigid and open, and body crumpling down until he was out of sight, wedged between a crate and the wall with his hands clawing at the curtains.

Lance wanted so badly to move he couldn’t. It was like being stuck in one of those nightmares, running from an unseen terror where everything moved in high-speed except him and, no matter how hard he’d try, he could never outpace his chaser.

Pidge was chanting, “It’s not true! It’s not true! It’s not true!” and Lance remained motionless.

Matthew Holt limped towards him as though wounded, hand outstretched.

“But Pidge,” he croaked with a lopsided smile. “It’s all true.”

Lance was so caught up in blocking the sound of Pidge’s cries, raw and plaintive, that he missed the rush of another boy into the recesses of the Hell-room. He’d been quiet but obvious in his entrance, leaping out of the shadows and into Matthew Holt’s path.

The awkward angle obscured his face. But Lance knew from his hair – dark and long and annoyingly flippity – exactly who it was.

_Keith Kogane._

Motherfuck. What was he doing here!? His presence alone was enough to jar Lance out of his stasis, just as Matthew Holt spontaneously burst into flames at the sound of a cracking whip. He swallowed the immediate relief that _yes, fuck yes, it’s a Boggart, it’s not actually Matthew Holt_ because another Death Eater, this time drenched in anonymity from his metal mask face stepped forward. The sheer awfulness of the situation was enough to kill Lance’s resolve – _another one, what in the love of quiznack is going on!?_

Keith whimpered, “No. Please. No.”

“It’s not real!” The yell forced itself from Lance’s throat before he could stop it. His voice sounded alien, even to his own ears, warped by fear. It was much more certain than he felt. “It’s just a Boggart! Cast Riddikulus!”

Keith didn’t move and Lance could have killed him. Despite his needling and Kogane’s obvious insanity, was he the most competent out of everyone in the room right now? What was he doing? Lance couldn’t fight a Death Eater, real or not!

“Filthy half-blood,” the masked figure droned. “You should never have been born.”

That was enough. Enough to shed enough light on the situation and confirm that it was definitely a Boggart.

“For fuck’s sake, Keith!” Lance huffed and he fucking moved _._ He drew his wand and a crate crashed to the floor in his wake, clothes and mothballs spilling out of its opened top. “ **Riddikulus**!”

Whilst his incantation didn’t work, at least he managed to get its attention away from the clearly-useless Keith. There was a crack and the Death Eater morphed into something a thousand times more sinister. He was face-to-face, not with a human spider or a cannibal mermaid or his own version of Voldemort himself, but the muzzle of a rifle.

Boggarts weren’t supposed to be corporeal but Lance swore he could feel the cold press of the gun’s mouth between his eyes. Its owner stared down the barrel at him with dark, unforgiving eyes and Lance stared back, seeing beyond the khaki uniform he wore and hearing more than the words that tumbled from his mouth.

“Par – e – dón, par – e – dón, par – e – dón.”

Lance saw a wall lined with the faceless – young and old, black and white, rich and poor – and heard gunfire and garbled, romantic shouting, smelled smoke billowing from fat cigars against a Caribbean sunset, the scent of sweat and death and iron, and there were colours almost too intense to be true. Dazzling blue oceans, immaculate white beaches, rich green rainforests, red skies, red flags, red sands from Castro-caused castration and revolutionary red seeping through the khaki clothes and the dusty cracks in the floor and _God, it’s_ _too much red._

The triggers flinched underneath their soldiers’ fingers and a thousand gunshots split the air.

“Lance!”

* * *

Lance woke suddenly, every memory in high definition.

He was being violently shaken by someone he couldn’t quite distinguish in the darkness. The moonlight, stained blue by his bed curtains, just about illuminated a head of silver hair and pale, freckled skin.

“Wake up!” Rolo hissed.

Lance twisted onto his back and bolted upright, grasping at his dormmate’s wrists. His bedsheets were tangled between his legs and he felt overly hot and sticky – his hands were sweating ridiculously and felt clammy against Rolo’s bare skin.

“Ow, ow, ow! Let go!” Rolo wrenched his wrists away, rubbing at them ruefully.

“What happened?” Lance gasped.

“You kept yelling in your sleep. I think you were having another nightmare.”

“Oh.”

It had been a week since the Boggart encounter and every night had been the same. A week of reliving the fear and the guilt. Lance had seen Keith a total of three times in class and they hadn’t spoken about it. He hadn’t seen Pidge at all.

Rolo sat down on the edge of his bed. Though his eyes were starting to adjust, Lance couldn’t quite make out his expression. It was probably pretty apathetic anyway.

“Are…are you okay?”

Of course Lance hadn’t told him. Sure, they were friends and Rolo was cool enough not to bat an eye at his sneaking out at ungodly hours to meet up with Hunk (unlike the rest of their dormmates, who were all massive nerds) but talking about stuff like Boggarts? His worst fears? No way. Lance didn’t want to come across as a wimp.

“Aye,” he responded shakily. “I think so.”

 _No. Not really._ It was like there was adrenaline flooding his system through an intravenous drip. Right into his blood at full pelt. His tell-tale was a hammer in his chest, there was this violent thundering in his ears, his lungs were bursting – _breathe. It wasn’t real._

“Alright,” Rolo muttered. “But this better not interfere with our big match against Hufflepuff. You know Allura will kill you if you mess that up.”

“It won’t! I promise!” Lance gushed. He’d never forgive himself if he screwed up their chance to bring home the Quidditch Cup this year, if not for the awesome street cred he’d gain for Allura’s sake.

“Good.” Rolo rose to his feet, pushing the bed drapes aside. “You should get some sleep. We’ve got that practice match against Gryffindor tomorrow and you need to be in peak condition if you want a chance to prove yourself against Kogane.”

Lance groaned inwardly but remained silent as Rolo returned to his bed. The last thing he needed was to piss off half of Ravenclaw’s Beater squad, especially considering how they’d be covering him against Hamblin and Holkham. With a sigh, he flopped back down against his mattress and waited until the rustling in the adjacent bed stopped.

Even when all that remained was the soft breathing of the four other boys in the dorm, sleep didn’t come easy.

No matter how many times he told himself it wasn’t his fault, Lance couldn’t really bring himself to believe it. Sure, there was no way he could’ve predicted that Pidge’s worst fear would be a recently-gone-AWOL ex-student of Hogwarts, nor could he have predicted that Keith fucking Kogane would get his dumb arse involved in the whole thing, nor could he have predicted that Pidge would hate him so damn much after everything had unfolded.

The aftermath of the soldier was a blur, like it had never even happened. _Like a bad dream._ Lance had successfully cast Riddikulus, the Boggart had retreated, he’d argued with Keith (nothing new there), Pidge had cried…

Pidge had cried and said, very clearly, “This is all your fault!”

Lance pressed his palms into his eye sockets and willed himself to calm down. He remembered that part, the one thing he wished he could forget.

And then there was Hunk as well. Poor, brave Hunk who’d looked at him with those big, baleful eyes and said, “I don’t want to do this.” Poor Hunk to whom Lance had said, “I don’t need your help.” Brave Hunk who’d come back, despite everything, and held Pidge’s hand and who’d been so, so disappointed.

“Quiznack,” Lance grumbled miserably. He really needed to apologise.

* * *

“I’m not the one you should be apologising to.”

Hunk’s voice was low, almost lost underneath the groaning of pipes behind stone walls and the bubbling of various cauldrons. On the table rested an open copy of _Magical Drafts and Potions_ , courtesy of Arsenius Jigger, which Lance was thumbing gingerly.

“What do you mean?” he griped, slightly dejected. “Do I have to say it again?”

“No, it’s not that.”

“What, then?”

Lance abandoned the book in favour of crossing his arms. Didn’t Hunk realise how hard this was for him? ‘Sorry’ wasn’t part of his vocabulary on his best days, let alone when he’d barely slept and the entirety of the Quidditch team was breathing down his neck.

“Silence, McClain,” Snape’s voice sneered. He stood at the front of the classroom, the wraith, with an enchanted piece of white chalk carving instructions into the blackboard beside him. “Though such a thing may not occur to your infinitesimal brain, sound travels and the whole classroom can hear your lover’s spat. Five points from both Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff.”

“But –”

“Ten points for your impudence unless you refuse to heed my orders and open your mouth one more time.”

Lance promptly shut up. Hunk sighed.

“Good,” Snape drawled. “Now, to continue – the Girding Potion may be consumed to increase one’s endurance for a considerable number of weeks…”

 _Ugh_ , Potions was the epitome of boredom. There was no fun in stirring funky soups until they changed colour, nor was there any fun in listening to Snape drone on about how he could teach everyone to bottle fame, brew glory, or even stopper death. It was all pish to Lance.

Before long, he was back to fiddling with his book again, folding and unfolding the corner of his current page.

“Who are you suggesting I speak to?” he mumbled sulkily, making a conscious effort to keep his voice as low as possible.

Hunk didn’t even glance up from his notes. “I don’t know, Lance, maybe the others who were there that night?”

“You don’t mean _Keith?_ ” he choked.

As if he’d apologise to that arsehole! _He always barges into my business and ruins everything! I’d – I could never even_ think _of –_

Hunk was glaring at him now. “He helped you.”

“No, he didn’t!” Lance hissed. “Everything was fine until he showed up!”

A roll of the eyes and the Hufflepuff was back to the recipe. “Whatever you say. Can you pass the dragonfly thoraxes? We’re almost done.”

“Fine.” Lance begrudgingly shoved the jar closest to him across the desk.

“These are doxy eggs – I’ve already added them,” Hunk huffed. “The thoraxes are in the bowl.”

“How was I supposed to know that? They look the same.”

“Because you’ve been toasting them for the past half hour!”

It was one of the few times that Hunk had raised his voice and it took Lance by surprise. He’d never seen him this grouchy before. Before he could muster something to say in reply, however, he felt a strong hand on the side of his head pushing him closer to Hunk until their temples collided. For a second, the world was white and dazzling, and then the pain set in.

“Your quarrelling is tedious to witness,” Snape spat. Somehow, he’d crossed the room to stand right behind them without either of them noticing. “I’ll be deducting twenty points from each of your House’s _and_ writing a note to their Heads to inform them why you had to stay behind to re-organise my store cupboard.”

Lance winced, half from the throbbing in his skull and half from the mouthful he knew he was going to get from Flitwick later. And – _shit_ – Allura would have his head if he didn’t show up to the pitch on time.

“Wait, sir!” he yelped at Snape’s retreating figure. “I have a match tonight and I can’t afford to be late!”

“Maybe you should have thought about that before you decided to interrupt my lesson.”

He wanted to argue further, but Hunk’s hand on his forearm stilled his tongue. “Leave it, Lance.” He was rubbing underneath his yellow bandana with his other hand. “We can sort it out later.”

It didn’t take long for Lance to start sulking. “Fine.”

“Now could you please pass me some thoraxes?”

“Aye,” he sighed.

It was some time later when they were left alone, the last drabs of their class trailing out of the classroom. Rolo and Nyma, among the last to leave, both shot exasperated looks over the shoulders they hadn’t hitched their brooms over. Lance waved to them weakly, the small smile on his lips doing little to hide his dread.

Snape’s instruction on the exact ratio of water he required Hunk and Lance to add to his jars of undiluted bubotuber pus fell on mainly deaf ears. He left promptly with a severe warning not to meddle with anything else in his stores on pain of death, slamming the door to the classroom on his way out.

“Ugh,” Hunk groaned to himself. “He hasn’t given us any gloves. How are we supposed to do this without getting a rash?”

Lance turned to see Hunk kneeling on the floor next to some unopened bottles of frothy yellow liquid in the store cupboard, shuffling them gingerly about his knees as though he were worried that they would afflict him with some sort of curse if he dared touch them. He wrinkled his nose as he approached, peering into the musty old room without crossing the threshold.

“Gross.”

Hunk, seeming to have momentarily forgotten that he was there, flinched. Then sighed. “Stand back.”

“Don’t you need help?”

“Not really. Just stay out of the way.”

The only thing worse than reorganising the store cupboard was watching someone else reorganise the store cupboard. And the only thing worse than Hunk’s anger was Hunk’s disappointment.

“Oh, come on,” Lance drawled. “I said I’m sorry!”

“Doesn’t matter,” Hunk mumbled.

“You’re not even going to let me make it up to you?”

“I don’t want you to make it up to me! I’m not the one who was traumatised by your stupid desire for fame.”

There were two kinds of guilt that Lance felt in that moment: the kind that drowned him until he was useless, and the kind that fired his soul to purpose. Whereas before, he’d been drowning in the green, green notion of his own failure and Keith’s success, now he felt a new kind of remorse – the regret for his own inaction.

“You mean Pidge, don’t you?” he muttered, shoulders slumping.

Hunk’s silence spoke volumes.

“But I don’t even know where he is!” Lance continued.

“Well, find him,” Hunk snapped.

His anger was wince-worthy. “Hunk…”

“What?”

“I’m sorry – not just for being a twat, but for how I treated you. What I said to you.” Poor, brave Hunk. Lance bit his lip. “Do you – can you forgive me?”

The way his friend looked at him then, from where he was kneeling on the floor among jars of filth, released the hand that had been grasping Lance’s throat since the beginning of the day. The sight of Hunk’s forgiving eyes was like the fragrance a flower shed on the heel that had crushed it. Nothing was so common and so lovely.

“I forgave you as soon as you’d said it,” he said softly. Lance could’ve cried. But he didn’t, because he wasn’t a wimp. “You’d better go soon if you want to make it to your match on time.”

He blinked. “What?”

“Go on! I’ll finish this myself. I know how much Quidditch means to you.”

“That’s not fair! I’m the one who got you into this mess in the first place.”

“And I’ll probably work faster on my own. So, do me a favour and buzz off!”

It was all in good jest. He wasn’t angry, not even close. Thank god he wasn’t angry. Now, if only Lance could stop being angry at himself.

* * *

That was impossible.

Sometimes, he had too many thoughts at once, like there was a four-way intersection in his brain where everything was trying to go at the same time. There was the street Lance himself had come from, then this overpass that joined onto the main road where Allura was screaming out an open window disapprovingly – “I can’t believe you were late to your debut as Seeker! Do you realise how bad that looks?” – and, to his left, somewhere in the stands among an amassing crowd of red and yellow, a road of blue chanters speckled with green.

The turn-out was low for a practice match, but it made sense that Slytherin supported Ravenclaw in lieu of Gryffindor. He was so glad it wasn’t official so there was no commentator – he wouldn’t have been able to cope.

Suddenly, coming right towards him from across the intersection, a Bludger!

Lance executed a quick barrel roll to avoid it, yelping with fright. It clipped the tail of his broom and he spun out, grimacing, only vaguely thankful that he hadn’t broken his nose.

They’d only been playing for half an hour and he already had blisters on his hand from gripping the smooth ash handle too hard. His new Moontrimmer was jittery beneath him, as though it were feeding off his nerves and he cursed to himself – these things were meant to be reliable!

And why was he so nervous anyway? He’d been chosen for this by Allura herself, who was currently doing a pretty good job at Keeping the goals.

Maybe it was Keith’s omnipresence. Lance had crossed paths with the Gryffindor Seeker a handful of times and they barely acknowledged each other, in favour of scouring the field. It was too awkward.

The game raged all about them, with Gryffindor in the lead, obviously, and the Snitch nowhere in sight. He couldn’t afford not to catch it. The future of his career as a Quidditch star depended on Ravenclaw winning this match and he, Lance McClain, had to be the one to secure victory.

He opted to take the high ground, rearing up, up, up, until he was well above the pitch and the players danced beneath him like red and blue bottleflies. From up here he had as good a vantage point as any. Though his Moontrimmer still wobbled, it was great for high flying. Lance braced himself against the cold, late autumn winds and tried to remind himself that his fear was good: it meant he was paying attention.

_Right, okay, focus._

Keith was doing lazy loops around the track below and Lance had memorised his tactics enough to understand that meant he hadn’t seen anything of worth yet. Good. He couldn’t move as fast or manoeuvre as deftly as Kogane at high speeds so he sorely hoped Snitch-catching wouldn’t turn into an all-out broom race.

He was ready for this, born for this. Born ready if you will. And if there was one thing he had over Keith it was eyesight. He had the sharpest eyes of anyone he knew! Twenty-twenty vision, never needing glasses – there wasn’t a spec of dust he couldn’t spot from a mile away.

Suddenly, Keith swerved.

_Shit._

Either it was a feint – not a move he often attempted – or he’d spied the Snitch. And before Lance, no less! The possibility of him faking it wasn’t a chance Lance was willing to take. So, gritting his teeth at the windchill, he plunged down.

Keith moved fast but Lance had the advantage of height and wind resistance – or rather, wind _ass_ istance since he had somehow discovered the knack of calculating which way it was blowing. He wasn’t a Ravenclaw for nothing.

And Keith wasn’t feinting. The Snitch glittered coldly in the afternoon sun some meters ahead, its fast-moving wings casting miniature rainbows. The sight was dazzling, and Lance winced – there was no rain forecast, so neither he nor Keith had thought to wear their goggles. He realised his mistake now that his view was compromised.

They were facing west, and towards the setting sun. It wouldn’t do.

Lance cursed to himself and adjusted his trajectory, dropping to a level just below Keith. _Here._ In his shadow, he could see clearly. The ruby red of his robes encompassed them both – they flew within inches of each other – and each move he made Lance copied with the precision of long observation. As soon as they were out of the sun’s rays, he would make his move –

_Now!_

They rounded a tower and, in the briefest second where the sunset couldn’t catch them, Lance angled himself up. His shoulder knocked Keith’s and they were neck and neck, reaching forward with their arms outstretched.

It all went wrong in a matter of seconds.

He leant too much of his weight on Keith and the Gryffindor buckled, taking Lance and his balance with him. The sweat from his palms scurried his grip and he pitched forward, like a cyclist flying over the handlebars. Before he even noticed he was falling, they rounded the east-side of the tower and they were back in the view of the pitch, the spectators, the sun.

Lance hands flew up to shield his gaze and he dropped off the seat of his broom.

They’d done falling drills before. He knew he was supposed to curl into a ball and roll forwards but for some reason, he didn’t and opted for the shrieking and madly flailing route. Gravity was merciless and some part of his brain told him he’d hit the ground in five seconds flat and that he’d probably break his collarbone if nothing else.

Somewhere high in the stands, there was a roar and a whistle and a scream and then he wasn’t really falling anymore but gliding. Something sharp pulled on his armpit, like a backpack being hoisted up and, he wasn’t wearing a parachute, was he?

It wasn’t a parachute. It was _Keith_.

Keith, who was smaller than him and getting dragged off his broom.

“Let go!” Lance screamed.

“No!”

He’d miscalculated. It took them six seconds to hit the floor in an explosion of dust and pain. Lance skidded onto his side, scuffing up the blue of his robes into a dusky grey and grazing his cheek in the sand. He felt the grit score away his skin. Keith must’ve landed some way off. Or he was still airborne. Lance didn’t know and he didn’t care. Not while his face was bleeding.

“Ow…”

He wasn’t sure how long he stayed there, face-down in the dirt. Maybe a second, maybe a minute, maybe even an hour.

He dimly registered a cacophony of cheers and approaching footsteps.

“Lance! Lance! Are you alright?”

“Ah – Allura?”

God, the world was so _fuzzy_. Someone was shaking him. Then they slapped him in the face.

“Ow!” he exclaimed, pulling himself up into a sit. “What was that for?”

Allura was crouching next to him, her robes as tattered as she looked. There was bruise developing on her forehead, no doubt from a poorly-aimed Quaffle, and her nose was botched.

“Oh, thank goodness,” she breathed. “I thought you were going to pass out on me for a second.”

“Pass out?” he repeated, dumbly. Why would he pass out? He didn’t hit his head. “You’re bleeding.”

Nyma scoffed and Lance realised she was standing right behind him. “Speak for yourself.”

“What?”

“You hit the ground pretty hard, Lance,” Allura explained. “You didn’t move for a solid minute.”

“Is that why they paused the match? What’s with the cheering anyway? Did we score?”

“You’re hopeless!” Nyma snarled. “No, we did not score!”

Rolo chimed in with a sigh of his own: “You really don’t know what happened?”

“Gryffindor won, Lance,” Allura said bluntly. Her slap earlier had nothing on that revelation.

“What?”

“We don’t really know what happened because you were obscured from view at the time – one minute you were shadowing Kogane, the next you were falling.”

“He grabbed me!” Lance gasped. “That’s against the rules!”

Allura looked like she wanted to punch him. “He _saved_ you, you arse.”

“Saved…me?” The notion came with the gut-wrenching familiarity of déjà vu.

“Yeah,” Rolo interjected. “From what I saw he was trying to hoist you onto his broom but couldn’t manage it without letting go of the Snitch.”

 _Oh._ So, Kogane caught the Snitch after all. His vision seemed to fan out then, taking note of the ripple of the few excited Gryffindor in the stands and the streams of blue and green trudging out. Their team was clustered around the centre of the pitch and past their tall, broad shoulders, Lance saw nothing of their Seeker.

Not until he was hoisted onto Shiro’s shoulders.

All storm-dark eyes and ruffled hair and smiles and Golden Snitches. The sight did weird things to Lance’s stomach. It kind of made him feel sick. How could someone whose worst fear was a Death Eater laugh like that?

He was on his feet and marching before he even had a clue what he was doing.

“Hey!” he yelled, and the movement of his mouth blistered his bleeding cheek. His arm burned, and he clutched as his elbow. “Kogane!”

Shiro was the first to react, fixing him with a look that was just short of a glare. Then the Chasers and the Beaters turned to stare, and, by comparison, the Keeper’s face wasn’t so hostile. Keith warily patted his head and he was set down instantly. Lance saw that he hadn’t escaped the fall unscathed either – his arm guard was ripped, and the hand wrapped around the Snitch was all swollen. Where he should have been scowling, he looked curious instead.

“Lance, wait!” Allura cried behind him and when she grabbed his bicep, he shook her off.

“You really piss me off,” Lance spat. Keith’s characteristic glower returned, and he decided he liked that better than his smile. It made him feel less funny. “I didn’t need your help!”

Keith huffed and turned to walk away. “Pfft. Alright, arsehole.”

“I’m not finished talking to you!”

Allura swore under her breath behind him and Keith paused in his retreat. “Oh, yeah?” he retorted, clearly itching for a fight.

God, give him _strength_. The words almost stuck in Lance’s throat before he could even choke them out. “Thanks. For…uh…for catching my fall.”

He knew it was lame and barely covered the amount of shit they’d thrown at each other before and the more he thought about it, the more the bones in his elbow ached out of sheer spite for the fact that he had just _apologised_ to _Keith Kogane_. Hunk had better be proud of him because that was probably the hardest thing he’d ever had to do in his entire life, and he’d done some pretty hard things!

He couldn’t see Keith’s face since he’d turned away, but he spied the tension in his shoulders – watched how it bunched up like a flame and then unravelled like a river. The Gryffindor Seeker cocked his chin over his shoulder and Lance could just about make out the corner of his lips pulled up into a smile. The world was holding its breath.

“Anytime, McClain. Anytime.”

* * *

He was in the infirmary nursing both his wounded pride and his elbow when Hunk found him. He was panting as though he’d just run a marathon.

“Woah, calm down,” Lance chided from where he was sat on the edge of the bed with a cup of Skele-Gro. “You didn’t have to run here. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Oh my God, Lance,” Hunk breathed through gritted teeth. “Are you okay? Allura told me what happened. You fell off your broom? Is it broken? Are _you_ broken?”

“Aye, aye, no, and not quite. It’s just dislocated. Madame Pomfrey said she’ll reset it in a minute.”

Rolo had retrieved his broom from where it had lodged itself in one of the goal posts while Nyma had led him to the hospital wing and Allura had alerted their Head of House. He got to miss at least one day of classes – _wicked!_ – but had sacrificed his dazzlingly good looks in the process. He sorely hoped the graze wouldn’t leave a nasty scar on his cheek. Not that he could check underneath all the gauze.

“Oh,” Hunk remarked, pointedly not looking at the way Lance’s arm was bent out of shape. He always was a squeamish one. “That’s good. I – um – I brought someone to see you?”

Lance frowned. “Oh?” He couldn’t think of anyone besides Hunk who’d want to see him right now. “Who is it?”

“You can come in!”

He was lucky he’d been placed close to the door – partly because he wasn’t staying overnight – so the Hufflepuff didn’t have to call down a line of beds filled with patients. From the main doors, in shuffled a first-year he recognised immediately, from the round spectacles to the short-cropped hair and the oversized jumper.

“Pidge!” Lance squeaked. “I thought – um – you didn’t want – uh – hi?”

His only response he got was a meek “hey” and Pidge wiping his nose with his sleeve. Either he’d been crying, or he had a cold. Lance figured it was the latter.

The awkwardness of the silence that followed was pretty immense.

“He was waiting outside but didn’t want to come in alone,” Hunk explained, just to dispel some of the weirdness. “I’ve got some important work to catch up on so I’m going to go. Bye!”

He scarpered before Lance could protest. _Bloody coward._ He sighed. Ran a hand through his hair. Reminded himself to get a haircut at Hogsmeade before he too had a mullet. Pidge, meanwhile, was just standing there, clenching and unclenching his fists like he didn’t know what to say. Lance didn’t know what to say either. So, he started simple.

“You watched the game, huh?”

Pidge nodded.

“Bit of a shitshow, wasn’t it?” he continued. “Looks like I’m not as good at Quidditch as I thought.”

“You’re not as good at a lot of things as you thought.”

He didn’t even have the heart to be angry because it was true. “Touché.” Pidge was still hovering. “Why don’t you come and sit down?”

He blinked at him a few times and Lance thought that maybe he’d refuse. His reluctance to get any closer seemed evident in his posture. _I can’t blame him_. But, eventually, he relented, moving to sit on the edge of the bed beside Lance, his fingers curled in his lap around the hem of his shirt. He looked so much younger than he actually was.

“You remind me of my nephew,” he said quietly.

“You have a nephew?”

“And a niece. ‘Remind’ isn’t the correct word, actually. I’ve never met them.”

Pidge furrowed his brows. “What do you mean?”

“They live in a different country. My entire family does.”

“Oh. That must be hard.”

Lance didn’t want to verbally confirm that fact, so he just nodded. “You know kids’ accents don’t change after they’ve turned eight, right?”

He wasn’t looking at the Slytherin boy anymore, but he could feel his brown eyes staring into him. “Okay?”

“And I have a pretty thick Scottish accent. My nephew, Sylvio, would be eight now. I’ve been told we look a lot alike, but he doesn’t even speak the same language as me. And I don’t speak the same language as him.”

“Where is this going?” Pidge asked.

“I don’t really know,” Lance answered honestly. “I figured you came here because you were worried about the fall.”

“I was.”

“But I’m really glad you did because I wanted to apologise.”

Pidge didn’t say anything then. Just sat there, swinging his legs, listening, and waiting.

Lance sighed and continued: “I don’t really know what happened back there with the Boggart and I don’t expect you or Keith to tell me about it. But I figured I might as well tell you about mine. I was born in a country called Cuba, on the other side of the ocean.”

“I know where Cuba is.”

“Okay, good. That makes describing it a little bit easier. It’s an island – a little bit like where I live now, but warmer.” Currents of cigarette fumes wafting through what passed for clean air and young women in bright-hued gowns gliding through steams of smoke like tropical fish in an aquarium. White uniforms and leathery faces and Navy men. “My mum’s a Muggle and my dad’s a Squib.”

“Oh,” Pidge remarked. “A wizard-born Muggle?”

“Aye. He moved out there for work with the Armed Forces and that’s how they met.” He paused, licked his lips. “Cuba’s lovely, but it’s not safe for people like us. My grandparents took me in when I was young, after they found out I was a wizard, and I’ve never been back. I barely remember anything about it – not my brothers or my sisters, or even my parents.”

His voice had gone quiet, reduced to barely a whisper, as though he were scared the masked men from his nightmares would hear and hunt him down.

Pidge gulped. “You don’t remember your family?”

Lance shook his head sadly. “Not really. I remember some things, like my mum’s garlic knots and the beach, but sometimes I wonder if I’ve just made those things up to supplement real memories. Just like my fears.”

He shivered a bit at that and the Slytherin boy beside him shuffled a little closer. “What do you mean?”

“The man that Boggart turned into isn’t real,” Lance explained. “But I’ve heard of the kind of men who run Cuba at the moment, and what they do to people who don’t follow the rules. There are Muggle stories and things that my dad writes in his letters that scare me. Sometimes, I’m so scared that they’ll find out what he is and they’ll all get taken to the Wall that I can’t sleep.”

“That’s,” Pidge mumbled. “That’s what ‘ _paredón_ ’ means, doesn’t it? The Wall.”

Lance chuckled. “Aye. You’re really smart, you know that? Probably better at Spanish than me.”

“You don’t know any Spanish?”

“ _Un poco,_ ” he admitted. “I was too young to really pick it up before I moved away. I’m not really sure why I’m telling you all this when the only other person who knows anything about it is Hunk.”

Pidge shrugged at that. “If it makes you feel better, then it’s worth it?”

Lance could have slapped him. But only softly. “You’re only saying that because you feel sorry for me right now,” he groaned. “Just because I lost that dumb match. But, really, what I want to say is sorry. I’m sorry, Pidge. I used you as an excuse to better myself and made you face something that even I wasn’t ready to handle.”

There was a moment where Pidge was teasing the skin of his lower lip between his top teeth where Lance questioned whether he would ever be forgiven or whether he’d have to spend the next four years of his school life repenting for making a first-year cry. He was still curious as to why exactly Pidge’s Boggart had manifested as ex-student and convict Matthew Holt, but that bridge could be crossed at another time.

“It’s okay,” he said finally, after a full minute of consolidation. Lance was sure he’d done that on purpose, just to make him sweat. “As long as you still teach me how to duel.”

“Deal!”

“And I get to watch Madame Pomfrey reset your elbow.”

“…you’re a sadistic little shit, aren’t you?”

All he received was a wide grin. It almost made the pain worth it.


End file.
